Rifle Rookie in need of advice

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I am BRAND SPANKIN NEW to rifles. I have a good working knowledge of pistols and am ok ...

Rifle Rookie in need of advice

I am BRAND SPANKIN NEW to rifles. I have a good working knowledge of pistols and am ok with shotguns.

I want to build an AR/M4 in 2010, I don't want to spend a ton of money (prefer less than 1500) and have access to some accessories at dealer cost.

Here's what has been suggested so far.

STS lower with a DPMS parts kit
Unsure on Upper
And MAKO accessories out the rearend.

I don't really know the names of a lot of the internal parts either so please dumb your info a bit and I will catch on. I want it in .223 but also going to get a .22 upper for it for practice. Any advice will be appreciated. Thanks!

Buy Mil-Spec. After that, buy inferior quality if you want to save a couple of pennies or build your own. After the first one, it's all good. I'm no expert, but that's the advice I got when I asked some experts.

It's easier to learn how to run the gun if your focus isn't split on trying to learn how to diagnose problems easily avoided by buying a good rifle. Here is a great article for folks buying a new AR for home defense purposes. While I strongly suggest reading it, here’s the short version: buy a solid rifle that you don’t have to screw around with and go shoot the piss out of it. A solid rifle will give you a good foundation for learning to run the gun and learning what you need in a gun. From this experience you can upgrade or add to the stable as you see fit. Generally speaking I agree with Rob (the article’s author) on this point.

To that end, this post may be helpful to you, both the AR15 section and my note on ammo selection.

This topic on M4Carbine.net is outstanding for figuring out which .22lr upper is good for you.

Generally speaking this is a good forum to learn basics about a lot of different rifles, but more technical information can be found in abundance on more dedicated forums. For example, solid information on the AK family of weapons can be found at AK Forum.net (registration required, but it's free and worthwhile if you're interested in the platform at all). For the AR family of weapons there's no better resource site than M4Carbine.net. I could go on but you get the idea.

Good luck in your search sir, and any questions you have we'll try to answer the best we can.

I am building an AR15 as we speak. Will be finished Mid Jan (waiting for barrel)
Go to brownells and use the AR builder to see what parts you will need. Midway usa has about the best prices on upper parts. AR15.com has great posts/stickies for instructions ...spend hours if not days on this site before deciding if you want to continue.

First problem i see is the dpms lower parts kit..the trigger pull will be HARD so if you are building to make a nice, accurate rifle from the get go, without changing parts later, then you might as well get a good trigger, otherwise any accuracy you gain will be lost because of insane trigger pull.

I am not convinced that I will save any money after I am done no change that I will not have saved any money.

The build is simple for me because I have been using an m-16 or m4 for the past 15 yrs. There is lots of info on the net to make it easy, especially midway with schematics, brownells with instructions and ar15.com with loads of tips.

Dont be tempted to purchase any no name off brand crap that you will come across to save money, because you won't. I have seen some complete barrel assemblies on gunbroker for about $300 i did not buy them.

You may also want to consider free float hand guards, they improve accuracy.

I prefer a flat top receiver but still installed iron sights in addition to a scope (varmint hunt).

How much are you planning on spending ? If the answer is not at least $900 then stop now. If it is over $1400 then buy one. Something else you will have to wait for parts to come in alot of times. Remember a few months ago the big run on AR's well those people that thought they could get around he shortage have all been buying parts and the manufacturers are still trying to keep up with the demand for new rifles and the folks that build.

I want to stay around 900 to 1000, but I have access to mako parts at dealer cost (because i have a tactical shop) and a .22lr upper at cost because i have friends with connections. This is my first rifle so I want it to be right. Any input on the CMMG stripped lowers? What trigger do you suggest.

Was browsing the magazine stand and saw a magazine that has alot of good info in it. It is from Guns and ammo and is called "Book Of The AR"

IMHO as long as you get forged receivers from good companies you will be ok cmmg, stag, dpms etc are all ok in the receiver dept. The barrel and trigger are moneymakers. Daniel Defense makes good barrels, you can get lucky with dpms (hit or miss) same with olympic arms and dsa.
For you price range I would buy the lower parts kit you mentiond and upgrade later to a jard or timney for example. Spend the money on the barrel with free float hand guards.
Alot of this depends on what you want the weapon to do if you want sub MOA the you are going to have to spend alot of time researching and looking for deals. If you just want to shoot a little and have fun and are ok with 1.5" groups (could still get lucky and get better) then dont worry much dpms, olympia dsa etc will all serve well

Thanks all. For now I mainly want to shoot and learn how the rifle works. As for group size I am not worried about that if I have to use it for home defense my groups can be 3 inches and shooting at center mass thats good enough. Then I will get a good one for duty or sporting or whatever. I think building a cheaper gun will be better for now.

I was in your situation a few years ago. Good with pistols and new to rifles. I started with a Marlin 336A for my first rifle. A lever action is a good all-around rifle. I knew that a lever action would allow me to concentrate on each shot more readily than an AR would - it is just too much fun to hit the 50 yard range for burst fire! I wanted to work on fundamentals first.

At any rate, my second rifle was an AR-15. I considered building one, but there are too many parts to troubleshoot for someone who is inexperienced. Without knowing how it is supposed to perform, I wouldn't know if a problem was caused by ammo, a broken part, a part installed incorrectly, a part installed correctly, but out of spec. I decided to buy a factory AR for the first one to learn on and customize it if necessary. With a good factory AR, I could focus on the basics first - get used to the care and feeding of it.

I eventually decided on an Armalite M15A4 and have been very happy with it.

All that being said, if you want to build your own, go for it! It's your money. Here's a great place to start (whether you buy or build one):

It's a free video series that shows how to build an AR from the ground up. They cover a lot of the main options (though not all the variants). Reference manuals are great (and definitely a necessity if you're going to build one) but actually seeing someone do it help a lot.

"To my mind it is wholly irresponsible to go into the world incapable of preventing violence, injury, crime, and death. How feeble is the mindset to accept defenselessness. How unnatural. How cheap. How cowardly. How pathetic." Ted Nugent